Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering

I am interested in developing theoretical proofs and computational methods to enable robots and AI to operate safely around people in a way that we can all understand and trust.

Robotic systems promise to revolutionize our homes, cities and roads, but they still struggle with complex physics, changing conditions, and extreme events. At the same time, the excitement around the generative AI boom is tempered by new concerns about potential harms to people from poorly understood interactions for which we don’t yet have robust guardrails. So far, strong safety assurances have eluded both technologies, but I believe each may contain the key to the other.

My work combines control systems, artificial intelligence, and game theory to help robotic and AI systems reason robustly about their own safety despite using inevitably flawed models of the world and other agents.

Specifically, my research focuses on the following areas: 

• Safe robot learning: how can robots acquire new skills, explore unknown environments, and adapt to unexpected situations without risking accidents?
• Safe interaction and corner-case handling: how can robots ensure safety while sharing the space (or the road) with scores of nearby agents, including people, even in the rare but crucial corner cases?
• Human–AI safety: how can increasingly advanced AI systems anticipate and prevent harm to people in open-ended interaction settings like dialogue or content generation?

Please visit my lab website to learn more: saferobotics.princeton.edu

BIO

Jaime Fernández Fisac is an Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Princeton University, where he directs the Safe Robotics Laboratory and co-directs Princeton AI4ALL. His research integrates control systems, game theory, and artificial intelligence to equip robots with transparent safety assurances that users and the public can trust. Before joining Princeton, he was a Research Scientist at Waymo, where he pioneered new approaches to interaction planning that continue to shape how autonomous vehicles share the road today. He is also the co-founder of Vault Robotics, a startup developing agile delivery robots that work alongside human drivers. Prof. Fisac holds an Engineering Degree from Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, a Master’s in Aeronautics from Cranfield University, and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences from the University of California, Berkeley. His work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal and WIRED, and recognized with the Google and Sony faculty research awards and the NSF CAREER Award.

TEACHING

• ECE/ROB 532: Safety-Critical Robotics and AI
• ECE/ROB 346: Intelligent Robotic Systems
• ECE 302: Robotics and Autonomous Systems Laboratory (“Car Lab”)